Search Previous Papers

Sunday, 14 May 2017

UN COMMITTEE SLAMS ‘WIDESPREAD TORTURE’ BY PAKISTANI POLICE

UN COMMITTEE SLAMS
‘WIDESPREAD TORTURE’ BY PAKISTANI POLICE

A United Nations committee has
censured the “widespread practice of torture” by Pakistani police, military and
intelligence agencies, urging the country to make urgent reforms to the law. “The
police engage in the widespread practice of torture throughout the territory
... with a view to obtaining confessions from persons in custody,” said the UN
Committee against Torture in a report published Friday after probing the issue
for months.

The report further read, “The
Committee is seriously concerned at reports that members of the State party’s
military forces; intelligence forces ... and paramilitary forces have been implicated in a significant number
of cases of extra-judicial executions involving torture and enforced
disappearances.” The UN committee also underlined that the country’s so-called
Torture, Custodial Death and Custodial Rape Bill, which was presented years
ago, has yet to be passed by the legislature.

This is while Pakistan ratified
the Convention against Torture in 2010, but submitted its first report on the
situation in the South Asian nation only this year four years late. The
committee further called on Islamabad to “incorporate into its legislation a specific
definition of torture” that can be applied without exception, including to the
army, which is often reported to have abused its powers.

According to the findings of the
report, several Pakistani bloggers were tortured after their arrest over criticizing
extremism in the country as well as the authorities. The committee also pointed
out that Islamabad had failed to launch a probe into any of such cases, or into
a number of people who had disappeared or killed while in custody.

Meanwhile, Pakistan-based
National Commission of Human Rights, an institution affiliated with the
country’s parliament, has welcomed the UN report, saying “the publication could
help start a conversation about torture” in the country. It further underlined
that a “total” ban on torture is an “unequivocal prerequisite to effectively
fight terrorism.”